The present invention relates to systems and methods for providing visual presentation and navigation of content using data-based image analysis. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for allowing users of a browsing software application to search, browse, and navigate collections of data or other content of interest using data-based image analysis.
Systems and methods are known that allow users to visually browse through a virtual space on a computer screen. Web browsers and other database-driven software applications have been developed that provide user-interfaces for allowing users to browse, search for, and otherwise interact with content stored in a database. The content stored in the database may be stored with various relational attributes and may be dynamically presented, sorted, ranked, selected, or viewed in greater detail. This organization of content allows for easy navigation of content and integration with other sources of content.
However, known content browsing software applications typically rely on text and text-based commands for navigation of, and interaction with, database content. For example, information may be stored and presented using the browsing application, and a user of the browsing application may select text-based options or enter text-based criteria for executing a command to search for, filter, enter, update, and sort content, or to perform other data-based operations. A programming language, such as Structured Query Language, typically allows users to execute commands and perform data-based operations. Even when images or other visual objects are used for navigational purposes, they are typically implemented merely as placeholders in the page layout, replacing their text counterparts, but adding little to the interface through their actual content.
It is desirable, however, for database-driven software browsing applications to display as little text as possible to facilitate a user's navigation of stored content.
Publicly known software browsing applications, such as web browsers (e.g., Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, etc.), have been developed to facilitate the navigation of vast amounts of content using a combination of selectable text and images. For example, in an online retail environment using a web-based browsing application, a web browser interface may be used to allow a user to select images of retail items in order to find more content related to the selected item. However, the selection of item images typically leads to additional text-based content, and although users may ultimately be presented with an image of an item once the item is located, much of the searching and navigation in an online retail environment involves entering text-based criteria or selecting text-based options. Moreover, images used in a web browsing application typically function only as placeholder display objects having pre-defined data links, while the content of the image is entirely ignored by the web browsing application. The images could effectively be replaced with textual or button objects in the page layout with little or no change in functionality.
It is therefore desirable to provide a graphical user-interface in a virtual retail environment that presents vast amounts of content (e.g., items, item categories, etc.) to users in an image-based, rather than textual, manner.
It is also desirable to provide a graphical user-interface that allows for dynamic user interactions with content (e.g., searching, browsing, navigation, etc.) to be performed in an image-based, rather than textual, manner and, more particularly, for the user interactions to be based on analysis of the actual visual contents of the images such that the application is capable of deducing user intent by evaluating and comparing selected images.
In addition to web-based browsing applications that present selectable images of retail items, and that allow users to access textual database content related to a selected image, systems and methods are known for storing and indexing image-based content in a database. For example various index structures, such as B-Trees, Sequential Indices, Cube Indices, etc. are known and commonly used to store, index, and retrieve image-based content in multimedia databases. Technologies and techniques are also known for automatically detecting and analyzing image data from an external source and for automatically synthesizing, generating, compressing, editing and enhancing stored image data. These techniques would be especially useful for the purpose of storing and navigating content in virtual retail environments having vast amounts of image-based content and would allow users to quickly and easily navigate content in a virtual environment.
It is therefore desirable to provide a graphical user-interface that allows users to navigate a virtual retail space using indexed images of retail items stored in an item database.
It is also desirable to provide a graphical user-interface that groups retail items having common descriptive or visual attributes, thereby allowing users to more easily search for products of interest without requiring traditional text-based operations and commands, and, more particularly, without requiring the user to explicitly define the desired goal of his searching but rather allowing the user to simply provide examples of desired items for the application to analyze and use as a basis for further data retrieval.
It is also desirable to provide systems and methods for implementing a browsing application that is capable of navigating a database system solely on the basis of visual examples of desired items supplied by the user.
It is also desirable to provide a graphical user-interface that allows users to quickly and easily navigate through displays having vast amounts of content, and, more particularly, to allow users to search for content using example-based proximity search techniques.
It is also desirable to provide a graphical user-interface that allows users to navigate a virtual retail environment freely and in a rapid manner.